Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores how natural language accounts of political concepts—specifically, deterrence—can be formalized using computer languages. This formalization allows for a type of analysis impossible using other methods. The book illustrates how extremely important strategic concepts are often neglected in the absence of techniques capable of capturing their nuances, which techniques can be found in computational modeling. It discusses the application of Artificial Intelligence/International Relations methods to understanding the development policy choices of Third World leaders. The book examines the notion of "interpretive triples" to discover how the Senate Foreign Relations Committee attempted to make sense of the Ronald Reagan administration's foreign policy during the summer of 1987. The "Foreign Policy Decision Making" research consists of work aimed at modeling the information-processing and policy decision-making activities of political actors.